Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/157

 SECT. IV.] BETWEEN THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE PACIFIC. 121 Illinois, and that they spoke a language altogether distinct from the Algonkin and the Iroquois. They are said by Charlevoix to have been, in the year 1701, in alliance with the Sauks, the Foxes, and the Potowotamies, against both the Sioux and the Iroquois ; and he adds in his journal, (1721,) that they formerly lived on the shores of Green Bay, but had retired farther in- land. Carver was the first American who, in the year 1766, travelled through their country, at which time they appear to have been on friendly terms with the Sioux and all their neigh- bours. Pike, in 1807, estimated their number at two thousand ; but, according to the War Department, they amount to four thousand six hundred souls, and appear to cultivate the soil to a considerable degree. Their principal seats are on the Fox River of Lake Michigan, and towards the heads of the Rock River of the Mississippi. Their territory extends north- wardly towards the Wisconsin ; and they are bounded on the north by the Menomonies, on the west by the Sauks, and on the south by the Potowotamies. As their limits are nearly the same as one hundred and fifty years ago, it may be presumed that they have, during that time, lived generally on friendly terms with the Algonkin tribes by which they are surrounded ; but of their former history we know but little. They took part with the British during the last war against the Ameri- cans. Their vocabulary, which was received from the War Department, had been transmitted by Mr. N. Boilvin, an Indian agent. Some words were supplied by General Cass ; and some have been taken from Major Long's account of his first expedition. The Sioux proper, or Naudowessies, names given to them by the Algonkins and the French, call themselves Dahcotas, and sometimes Ochcnte Shakoans, or, " The Seven Fires," and are divided into seven bands or tribes, closely connected together, but apparently independent of each other. They do not ap- pear to have been known to the French before the year 1660 ; and they are distinctly mentioned for the first time, in the year 1666, by Father Allouez, then a missionary at Chagoua- migong, towards the southwestern extremity of Lake Superior. He says that they lived forty leagues more westwardly in a prairie country ; that they did not cultivate the ground ; that they were ferocious, warlike, and feared by all their neigh- bours ; and that they spoke a language entirely distinct from any other known to the French. It has already been stated, VOL. II. 16